Issue 295: AI vs. Gen Z

AI has changed a lot in the software engineering world. On our Leaders of Code podcast, Peter O’Connor, our Director of Platform Engineering, talks with Ryan J. Salva, Senior Director of Product at Google, Developer Experiences about how AI is changing dev teams and experiences. On the blog, we explore how AI has changed the software engineer pathway for Gen Z. And on the podcast, we talk to Geraint North, AI and developer platforms fellow at Arm, about how AI is changing their chip designs for mobile. XX

There's also a lot of changes happening in how we communicate on and with the internet. We're adapting to this new reality by adding a chat interface to our public knowledge base—hear from the folks who built it. Some websites are communicating how they should be compensated for AI access using licenses. One questioner wonders how they can prevent players from communicating outside of the game. XX

But variety is the spice of life, and the rest of this newsletter gets spicy. Is brute force better than an efficient solution with overhead? What's dampening the humanoid robot hype (besides terminators, of course)? And what happens when you let songs mate?

From the blog

Planning to Arm mobile devices with chips that handle AI

Ryan welcomes Geraint North, AI and developer platforms fellow at Arm, to dive into the impact of GenAI on chip design.

How AI is reshaping developer teams and the future of software development

Whether you're leading an engineering team today or preparing for an AI-integrated future, this conversation provides practical insights into where AI can have the greatest impact on your software delivery process.

AI vs Gen Z: How AI has changed the career pathway for junior developers

For promising Gen Z students, a career as a software developer seemed like the golden ticket to career stability and success. But in the age of AI, the career promise for Gen Z software developers is gone.

We built stackoverflow.ai with the community and for the community

Ryan is joined by our very own Ash Zade, Staff Product Manager, and Alex Warren, Staff Software Engineer, to discuss our newly released stackoverflow.ai, how it’s enhancing user experience by combining human-validated answers with AI, and our future plans for deeper personalization and community integration.

Scale GenAI apps without database headaches

Building GenAI on AWS? Don’t let your database be the bottleneck. Learn how CockroachDB handles massive workloads with resilience, global reach, and effortless scaling.

Interesting questions

Preventing meta communication in a massive multiplayer game

"It is almost always impossible to implement a technical solution to a social problem."

How did Von Braun calculate in 1953 that a rocket would have to be 3× taller than the Empire State Building to reach the moon?

Americans will use any measurements beside the metric system.

Why do so few source level optimizers exist?

There are plenty of GenAI companies trying to change this.

How to choose between brute force and efficient solution that has overhead?

Start with an easy turtle before wrangling with a complex hare.